I hate it when CTRL+Backspace doesn't work as expected, or starts adding non-printable characters instead. Saibot84 (talk) 12:42, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

It wouldn't surprise me if FB kept a list of all the people who unfriended you. I know that they don't delete accounts that have been deleted. Hax (talk) 14:45, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

The reference to defriending in reverse order could be a joke about memory management in programming: You free up memory in reverse of the order you allocated it --Eqdw (talk) 16:49, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Eqdw on the memory management reference; the title text especially seems to reference memory leak problems. Unfortunately, I lack sufficient technical knowledge to provide a good explanation of this for the description. TheGreatSasquatch (talk) 17:15, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

I remember using Noroom's List Manager to clean up my block/allow lists after a person has removed me from their contact list in good old MSN with good old MSG Plus! (with good old ***ware) 84.225.4.214 19:06, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

Some bullshit on the page. Not sure if it could be edited to something that makes sense, if not it probably should be erased: "But it also may refer to databases and the query language SQL. Modern web sites are always saved in such databases and using references from one entity to an other. A entity in this context is a thing in the modeled world, in this case Cueball and his friends. By using the entity–relationship model the friends will still have a relationship to the nonexistent user Cueball, the links are orphaned.". Problems: 1) Modern web sites tend to shift from SQL to No-SQL databases, especially sites like social networks; 2) The described behavior is not a problem in a properly designed SQL database, since absence of orphaned links is ensured by foreign constraints. 213.251.211.65 07:08, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

I disagree. At the title text Randall mentions a major looming problem belonging to databases. And all modern websites like wordpress, or even this wiki, using SQL databases in the background. No-SQL is an alternative, but still rarely used.--Dgbrt (talk) 10:27, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

In any good database, when you remove a table it should clean up all the links that when to and from it. There is no such thing as "database linkage accumulation slowdown". Even IF all the derelict links persisted, the only way that a system would slow down is if it was continually trying to access each and every dead link. Even then the system would be very quick to return an null value. An automated cleanup program would take very little time to process all of the "garbage" - IF there was garbage. Likely, the slowdown could refer to "The internet is filled with derelict accounts aggregating news about friends long forgotten.", the fact that when people abandon their old accounts, the system is still functioning and automatically processing whatever "services" they offer and every abandoned account is accumulating data, which could consist of actual data and/or links to other data. As the comic suggests, without users to "clean up" their old accounts the systems would slow down because of this automated data accumulation - which is 95% fiction (imho). Jarod997 (talk) 14:09, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Anything that needs to scale significantly gets away from SQL. It is not rarely used, it is the only option beyond a certain size. Facebook makes extensive use of No-SQL. 108.162.246.117 02:41, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

Nevermind the language used to implement current or historical database type websites. This detail is inconsequential to the comic. No program or database would rely on the actions of the everyday user to maintain the integrity of the system. All system maintenance required surrounding account deletion would be handled by separate systems and processes. The looming problem of 'database linkage accumulation' is obvious fiction dressed in technical language to fool the uninitiated. The joke is that Cueball is using a fallacious argument centered in a knowledge of good programming practice to justify a rude behaviour that he finds enjoyable as it provokes reactions in other users.

Paragraph two of the explanation should be edited to describe good programming practice centering around memory management. re: de-allocation and ordering paragraph three and four can be deleted in favour of explanation on why relying on user input to maintain the health of the system is foolish and would not be considered in such an implementation and the confirmation of d.b.a.s. as a false problem made up to justify Cueball's provocative behavior. Mrarch (talk) 00:17, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Should we explain that derelict means abandoned? This comic is about abandoned accounts, not about deleting rows from a database. 173.245.50.84 13:02, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

I agree with the derelict->abandoned idea. But what others are talking about is not deleting rows, but tables - if you want to look at it that way. What I believe the comic is suggesting is that if you remove a table which had a number of links pointing to it, those now dead links may be difficult to find and remove later. Jarod997 (talk) 21:24, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

I change a bit my comment: This comic is comparing abandoning an account with deleting a table from a database; it is not about deleting tables from a database only. 173.245.50.84 12:48, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

In the first paragraph ther explanation says "his friends' reactions suggest they think he is suicidal". Does anyone else think this is a big leap, or frankly incorrect? One of the friends questions whether Cueball is OK, but I don't see that there is any implication of suicide.. --Pudder (talk) 11:16, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

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